Monday, January 2, 2017

I've been wanting to devote a year to reading everything of importance from particular philosophers. So I'm planning on doing "The Year of Reading Dennett," "The Year of Reading Copleston," of Kim, of Urban, maybe of Desmond to get more into Continental thought. And of course, I'd want to focus on other than contemporary philosophers. I'll plan on reading each philosopher's works in roughly chronological order, and each author would have their own challenges: I could easily combine Plato and Aristotle into one year -- or I could do them separately and include some of the more important works about them as well. There's a lot of repetition in Dennett, so I'd have to be moderately selective in choosing what to read. I've already read Copleston's history of philosophy. Etc.

As the title of this post attests, the idea for this year was to be The Year of Reading Alvin Plantinga. There's even a particular, and particularly excellent, reason for this: I'm writing a book on Plantinga and would like to be as familiar with his whole oeuvre as possible. There's a problem however. My book's focus is specifically on his epistemology with some spillover into metaphysics and philosophy of religion, and I am very much hoping I can send a rough draft to the publisher by June. (Also it's about three-fourths written already, but needs more structure.) So it would be foolish of me to do it in chronological order and start by reading Plantinga's publications from the 1960s in the hope that there might be a throwaway passage I could quote. Moreover, what I really have to focus on at this point is the various critiques of Plantinga, not Plantinga himself. Maybe if I read his writings on epistemology and the critiques thereof in time to submit the book at the beginning of summer, then I could start reading his earlier writings and work my way back up to where I started. Maybe. Then again, I just re-read Warrant: The Current Debate, and I'm not about to re-re-read it just to have bragging rights that I read all his stuff within the confines of a calendar year. So my "Year of Reading" project is off to a shaky start.

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"Agent Intellect" is a philosophical term from the De Anima tradition. In giving my blog this title I am not trying to imply anything about its (or my) intellectual credentials. I am merely signaling my interest in, and occasional blogposts on, philosophy. The views expressed here are my own and should not be imputed to any past, present, or future employer or affiliation.

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Deconstructionism? Well, now let me see… You know, I don’t have any idea what that means. I know what you think it means, sonny. To me it’s just a made-up word. An ostentatious word, so young fellas like yourself can wear a suit and a tie and have a job. Deconstructionism? It’s just a bullshit word. So you go on and write your papers, sonny, and stop wasting my time. Because to tell you the truth, I don’t give a shit.